Attempts of Self-Realization in Jack Kerouac‟s “On the Road” and John Steinbeck‟s “Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Abstract

This thesis brings into focus Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley: In Search of America”. The narrators of the two travelogues represent the stories of their ownquest in America.The study aims at introducing these narratives within travel writing the interesting area of study. The researcher examines the two narratives to see how the road represents an open world for the individual to recognize the fact of the self and the world.Freedom on the road is reflected in the opportunity to bring the traveler’s views into practice. Moreover, the road provides opportunities to realize different relations that involve travelers and direct the attention to man relatedness to nature. However, Kerouac and Steinbeck’s narratives are considered a sort of enjoyment, entertainment, tourism,search of religious consciousnessand a quest for the romanticized America. A number of studies come to a point that both “On the Road” and “Travels with Charley” help dissolving the boundaries between different races andcontribute in America’s socio-cultural development. A number of principles prove to be helpful in examining the narrative under focus: Emerson’s Self-Reliance, Naess’s Self-realization and Deep ecology. The researcher concludes that the two narrators end up with a new awareness; the commonness of the origin of people,an important fact in the process of self-realization. Moreover, they realize that without being a member of the unified whole one cannot realize himself as an individualized entity. It has a recognizable presence within its integrated world.